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he's in the US (i'm on the other side of the world); he does not have a password.
i haven't touched Apple anything for many years.
some casual googling suggests he can "restore" the iPhone, but all its data will be erased.
i suggested he go to the local Apple store with, if possible, a sales receipt, or whatever else may resolve any question of ownership.
i'd appreciate any additional advice you may have !
cheers, bill
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
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Maybe I misunderstand, but you make it sound as if your friend is asking how to access his deceased brother's private information on that phone - the information that the brother had protected by a password (or similar mechanism) so that others should not have access to it.
So that others should not have access to it.
I really wish that they do not get access to the information that the deceased guy wanted to keep as his private. His death does not imply that he no longer has any dignity, any honor, to be protected. His private life is still his own. What he did not tell his brother when he was alive, he didn't want his brother to know. Respect that. Pay honor to that.
Although I have a smartphone myself, it is only because society demands it from you - they no longer know how to get in contact with you in person, by paper mail, email, ... Smartphones are The (Only) Way of Communication nowadays. But I keep no personal information on my phone. I have no need to protect it by any password - the startup PIN code is mandated by the network provider, not by me, and anyone can have it if they like. I keep my private writings on a desktop PC, several of them in files with strong encryption, handled by an external encryption program - asking MS for help (I am a Windows/Word user) won't help my descendants get access to my private thoughts after I am gone.
That is how it was before the age of smartphones. I honestly think we should keep it that way.
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an absurd, mean-spirited, off-topic rant based on illogical negative assumptions.
get a soap-box.
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
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I disagree with you completely.
Privacy doesn't end with death. Deal with it.
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What you say, while true, is mostly misplaced. I have a "passcode" on my phone, but it is not to keep my family out (they all know what it is); it is to keep others out in the event my phone is lost or stolen. I would surmise that most folks have this same thinking. Should I expire, I would want my family to have complete access to any and all items on my phone.
I also have a "in case I die" box that contains accounts, keys, passwords, etc.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Case in point. A long time ex-colleague and friend (30+ years) and I kept in touch supporting each other through various medical adventures.
Earlier this year, he called me from his hospital bed, saying that he was about to have half a leg amputated (complications of diabetes, the usual story).
We chatted for half an hour or so, made a date for him to show off his prosthesis in a few months time.
About a month later his wife called to tell me he didn't make it. She was going through his phone calling everyone in it. She knew me of course, but said that there were people in his phone book that she had no idea of. Work colleagues? Business contacts? Social acquaintances? ...???
So we were at least able to attend his funeral.
![Rose | [Rose]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif) for Steve
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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I think you'd want to retrieve that picture your brother took when you were out together last summer.
Or maybe you'd want to let his friends know he died and you need their numbers or email addresses.
They're not trying to invade his privacy, they're trying to salvage memories and get some closure.
Like David said, the password is there to keep strangers out, not relatives after you died (unfortunately, there's no password that only applies to strangers).
Why didn't he share his password when he was still alive? Probably because he wasn't planning on dying.
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You've made me curious what you have that is such a privacy concern. But that's just idle curiosity on my part.
My wife & adult sons have the access code to my phone -- which is there solely to keep strangers out. I have nothing of significance on my phone, as mobile devices are a security risk, but again, I don't want strangers in anything of mine.
I have my wife's codes and that of my sons, as well as their house keys and they still have ours. We respect each others' privacy, and we'd not enter each others' homes except for good purposes.
This thread made me realize how fortunate I am to have close family I can trust.
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I'll repeat in a similar way; if it is private, it is private and only open to Google and that Macintosh company.
No court will grant your wish.
Condolences though.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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If OP is the executor of the estate the court will grant access to all accounts owned by the deceased in order to fulfil the legal obligations for closing out an estate.
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That's why we have encryption.
Some weird US law. Well, technology says "no".
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Thanx Mircea Neacsu for this great link.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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You can use iMyFone's LockWiper to bypass the lock on the iphone, I've used it two or three times on iphones left by former employees who didn't bother to wipe their work phones and didn't leave us their passcode.
While I also think privacy should be respected, I'm also pragmatic enough not to care if the argument is about a dead person. I certainly wouldn't care if people snooped thru my stuff after I'm gone.
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I feel for you, I had to do this 4 years ago when my Brother in Law passed away unexpectedly.
I had to find a way into his Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and about 20 other assorted online service accounts.
And it WAS Painful.
Back then, the idea of having a digital will was still new, thankfully many services do now have a part in their settings, that allows you to nominate a person to hand the account over to on production of a death certificate.
I had to employ all sorts of sneaky tricks, from impersonating him over the phone (Luckily, I had a lot of his documentation to hand to answer things like security questions) to flat out threatening companies with court action, and with varying degrees of success.
The weak link in the chain however, was figuring out which email account he used as a backup for them all, in his case he had a secondary GMail address that no one knew about, once I discovered this, and was able to perform a password reset on the account, I was then able to use the access to that account, to perform a password reset on his main GMail account.
One I was into his main GMail account, I found that was his primary back up account/email for all his socials, and with the exception of Facebork everything from that point on was fairly plain sailing.
I don't have time to document the 2 years worth of fighting with Facebork that it took, and something which has recently cropped up again, but if you can get into his primary email account, you stand a much better chance of recovering an apple account that you do trying to deal with Apples Customer Services.
I wish you all the luck, your going to need it, you will get treat as though you are a criminal or a hacker, you will get cast off and past from dept to dept while they try to figure out a way to make you go away ...
All I can say is keep on at them, keep up the pressure, that's what I had to do, and am still doing with Facebork.
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really good answer
To err is human to really elephant it up you need a computer
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Reading thru all the replies. kind of makes me sick to my stomach.
We don't know the OP's reasons. Looking at his ID I can see he has been around for more than a day. So I am going to assume good intentions.
What makes me sick. Is the fact that most people don't plan for this stage of life. It is going to happen to all of us. I watched my own brother die at 35. He didn't plan for it. I watched my second brother die at 35. (guess what) I watched my dad have his 4th heart attack in 4 years. He didn't plan for it. My mom died of cancer at 70. She did actually plan for it.
Plan for this people! Plan for your own death!
My wife and my eldest have the passcodes to everything except work. Work can elephant off if I go.
I have a written will(my wife and I together have things planned out)
We revisit this plan every once in awhile. Not often enough probably but who likes doing this. I don't at all.
To err is human to really elephant it up you need a computer
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To me, it looks like of all causes of passing, cancer can be planned to a certain extent, because there is usually a time interval between diagnosis and passing. Heart issues and stroke are more immediate.
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Without more context, no. This is an estate matter. And this could have been a phone that the deceases used specifically to separate "none of your business". Perhaps the other party to the communications doesn't want their business aired in public either. Tunnel vision and a need to always be "sharing".
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Whether or not the phone can be unlocked, it is part of the estate. I'm assuming that the brother is the executor of the estate, otherwise he should turn the phone over to him/her.
It is the executor's responsibility to deal with this sort of stuff. For all you know, the phone might be the only place where a bitcoin wallet is stored, so allowing family to access it before the estate is distributed could get Apple, the executor, and the family in legal troubles.
This is just one of the reasons why online services make it so difficult to access accounts belonging to the dead.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: It is the executor's responsibility to deal with this sort of stuff. For all you know, the phone might be the only place where a bitcoin wallet is stored, so allowing family to access it before the estate is distributed could get Apple, the executor, and the family in legal troubles.
Ah, if there is something like this in the phone then the Executor is required to include it in the estate, so Apple could be sued for blocking access to part of the estate.
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Yes, so the Executor , not an arbitrary family member, should be the one to get access.
Perhaps I did not explain myself clearly enough.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Am I misunderstanding something? If the bitcoin wallet is only identified on the phone, and not in the cloud (in an Apple account), then AFAIK even Apple cannot help - one needs the PIN (passcode).
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For those who responded helpfully, my sincere thanks !
For those who assumed I eat human flesh, strangle kittens, and assist in the violation of the privacy of a deceased person, and used my post to rant-and-spew, I have no words, only disgust.
fyi: my respect for the deceased, and his grieving brother, is a compelling reason for omitting details of context that are tragic.
My specific mention of "resolve any question of ownership," in my OP, should have been enough to indicate issues of ownership/estate/inheritance were being addressed.
i have been active in efforts to raise awareness of, and support, advocacy for online privacy by organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation for years.
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
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